TANZANIAN BANKS, TELCOS WARNED LICENCES WILL BE REVOKED IF THEY FAIL TO CONNECT TO GOVT DATA CENTRE

DAR-ES-SALAAM, Banks and telecommunication companies in Tanzania have been warned that their licences will be revoked if theyr fail to connect to the government's electronic data centre by the end of this month.

The warning came from Finance and Planning Minister Dr Philip Mpango who told banks executives here this week that although the government had enacted regulations under the Tax Administration Act, 2015, which require all banks and telecommunication companies to connect to the electronic system for payment of tax by the end of December 2017, until this week, only 27 banks had complied with the legal requirement.

I have met almost 20 financial institutions to get to the bottom of why they are failing to implement the legal requirements, and among the reasons that I heard was fear of the unknown; that because TRA (Tanzania Revenue Authority) is able to monitor all transactions, they could easily be prone to cyber crime, he explained.

Other reasons were that because the requirements came abruptly, the banks, especially those with very wide networks, needed emergency and urgent funding, and that they needed to make official communication with their headquarters before effecting the legislation.

Because the banks have already violated the law, Dr Mpango ordered the TRA Commissioner-General to institute appropriate legal actions, including payment of penalties for the period during which they did not abide by the law.

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